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From: mark@cis.ohio-state.edu (Mark Jansen)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: VR and the handicapped
Message-ID: <10299@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 29 Oct 90 17:55:43 GMT
References: <9961@milton.u.washington.edu> <10037@milton.u.washington.edu>
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In article <10037@milton.u.washington.edu> pathak@mbunix.mitre.org (Pathak) writ
es:
>
>I remember reading in the Chicago Tribune about 6 months ago about a new
>experimental technique that allows human nerves to be joined with 
>computer wafers.  It seems that the wafers have holes in them and they can
>get the nerves to tie into the receptacles.  The article stated that the
>researchers hope perfect this technique and then go on to develop a whole
>new generation of prosthesis (sp?) devices that are smart enough to react 
>the information coming from the nerves.  I believe they were talking about
>such devices for accident victims.
>
        I seem to remember that if you take a suspension of nerve cells you 
        can get them to settle and attach to a integrated circuit kind of
        wafer and then do some training.  

        What appears to be new then would be how to get nerve cells of a
        living human being to proliferate and grow out.  Is that really
        posible yet?


--
Mark Jansen, Department of Computer and Information Science
The Ohio State University; 2036 Neil Ave., Columbus, OH USA 43210-1277
mark@cis.ohio-state.edu